‘Old Doting Bishop’

This chapter explores how the forces holding the Jacobean Church—Matthew’s broad-based conformity—were shattered by the increasing power of Laudian clerics, while his anti-Catholicism was undermined by a pro-Catholic foreign policy. As Matthew grew older, his influence in the Church waned as did his ability to protect Puritans within it. From 1615 onwards it became apparent that Matthew was a marginal force in the Church and his brand of Elizabethan Puritanism was seen as increasingly unfashionable. However, for Matthew, there was a keener tragedy—his eldest son, also called Tobie Matthew, became a Jesuit priest. This chapter concludes by looking at Matthew’s personal struggle to convert his son and sets that in the wider context of early Stuart politics. Matthew’s story ends with a family and a country deeply divided by religious politics in the years before the English Civil Wars.